Iran was keen to buy the missiles, the backbone of Russia’s air defense, as a hedge against the oft-threatened Israeli attack against them. Israel repeatedly dispatched officials to Russia regarding the possible delivery, on differing occasions pleading with Russia or threatening them over the possible delivery.

With the S-300’s delivery now permanently on hold, and the US already moving forward with threats for more sanctions against Iran, the Iranian government will likely attempt to develop other defensive or retaliatory measures in the event that the attack eventually does happen.

Russia is in on the scam. They want a war, simply because it will probably be the final nail in the coffin for the US Empire, and the world willl scream for global governance. The whole thing is a god damned charade, just like US domestic politics. The global elites are all internationalists no matter what nation they are from, unless you are a member of the axis of evil.

First of all, any war against Iran will begin with air strikes. And the war the Zionists want is a war to destroy Iran, just like they destroyed Iraq. The S-300PMU system will make the aggressors pay a price. Hopefully a heavy price.

Second, what you have to keep in mind here is that the "people" pulling the strings are not rational people. They're insane.

Lastly, what does the non-proliferation treaty have to do with any of this?

Exactly. The attack on Iran will be air strikes at first, and the best hope to stop that war now, barring a coup in Iran that installs a Quisling Regime (Mousavi) is that Iran hurts the attacking Iraelies enough to make the public opinion costs for Israel too high. Iran must inflict signifigant damage on the first wave. Russia has willfully chosen to make that virtually impossible for Iran, so that means Russia wants there to be a war.

Oh, there'll be war, alright ! And in all probability it will go nuclear. I wonder how Putin will explain that to all his erst-while adoring minions ? I think, if this is really true, then Russia has just gone a rook down.

I doubt if Iran has a plan B, although I take your point that arms dealers will sell anything to anybody. I think Iran's Big Plan is to block the Straits of Hormuz. But I think what will happen will be an aerial blitzkrieg against Iran more powerful than the world has seen before, likely nuclear as well. I think that will obliterate any Iranian Plan B.

I wish I could say I was shocked by this. But it has been clear for a long time now that Russia has been toying with Iran. It's not exactly easy to understand why. I don't know how much "why" matters. What matters is to stop fooling ourselves about what Russia's role in all this is. All these years that Iran has been relying on Russia as an ally, years in which Russia has pretended to Iran that it IS an ally (eg. establishing a supposedly crucial Caspian Sea security umbrella), Russia has been Iran's bitterest enemy.

weird, huh? My guess is there are two camps in moscow, the doves who don't want a war cause it'll be a shitstorm, and the hawks who say let American blow up the Middle East, it will toast our American military competitors and our Middle Eastern oil competitors. We never liked those Israelis anyways.

Remember that Russia has continually postponed completion of Bushere. I don't doubt that there have been 'technical problems' every step of the way. This refusal to finish Bushere, continually jerking Iran around over Bushere, is what has stuck Iran with a slowly increasing stockpile of enriched uranium, and it is this stockpile that has been routinely cited as the single most persuasive public reason for suspecting Iran's intentions. Russia set Iran up. Putin set Iran up.
He can barely contain his thugish self-congratulatory vibes right now. He is like the school kid who has been holding an insect under a magnifying glass and is feeling a peak of excitement, knowing that the helpless creature he has been tormenting is about to go up in flames

Your characterization of Russia's leadership — Putin in particular — as people who would make policy decisions based on personal emotional (ie sadistic) self-indulgence, doesn't seem plausible to me. The game the world is playing in the mideast is complex and dangerous, and Putin is as cold and calculating (in my opinion) a leader as I've ever seen. Brinksmanship is not "toying", it's way more serious.

Acknowledging that politicians will always serve their own self-interest first, the question becomes, "Does a strike on Iran (and the danger and uncertainty that follows) serve Putin's interest, and does it serve Russia's interest? At one level I would say yes, in spades. Russia is a major exporter of oil and gas. A war in the gulf blows the roof off of oil prices ($300/barrel?) which is massively good for Russia (as long as they stay on the sidelines) and massively bad for all Russia's western competitors. That said, the west knows these facts, too. So is Russia saying, in this rather unabashed fashion to the US/Israel, "Go for it you f*cking fools!", as a way of egging them on, or as a somewhat clever way of saying, "Perhaps you should think further about this, before you throw yourself in that "briar patch"? It's a win win for us, whatever you do." What exactly is the most effective approach when dealing with psychopathic dimwits like the US and Israel?

the sneakiest thing for the Ruskies could do would be to give Iran the stupid s-300s while denying it. Then America will be encouraged to try its suicide war, but be more likely to lose. Who would be upset with Russia for such deception in the wake of another American aggression? They'd more likely be considered heroes in 90% of the world.

Maybe this decision was made last September with Netanyahu's secret mission to Moscow, Perhaps Bibi has made available to Russia the latest U.S.military technology. in order to secure Russia's betrayal of Iran.

Yeah, this is the biggest pile of manure since the 45-minutes-away Iraqi germ warfare drones. The Saudis may not like Iran, but the Saudis are the most vulnerable (of the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia), have absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose as their oil facilities are retaliatory target number one for Iranian missiles. (Yes, of course, Israel would seem to be target number one, but shutting off western oil supplies from the Gulf is clearly the most damaging retaliatory response, and therefor the most powerful deterrent.) Five minutes after Iranian air defenses are hit to clear the way for the attacking planes, Saudi oil facilities will be ablaze.

Eppie's Question: "It's not exactly easy to understand why"
Answer: Over 80% of Israel's majorityi tribe members are bloodline Russians.Many speak Russian.The real goat in this is USA/UK ,they been suckered by the russians to build and fund this vampire class of freaks.When Americans wake-up to the OBVIOUS fact that they been used (As/in Israel Firsters did 911), }srael would flee to the new host Russia.

Just one overlooked item–2 weeks ago, Hillary Rodenhurst Clinton stated that Russia and China were on board for sanctions againist Iran. However during that time Russia/China liad—No new sanctions againit Iran. Can't trust anyone these days. Iran is being set-up ,I give Iran a couple of months to look like Iraq.When Russia says,by August 20100 the Elctric generating Nuke plant will be finished–they mean splattered to the ground :^/

For a country that is bankrupt, with a twenty-percent unemployment rate (the real figure according to the pre-Clinton mode of measurement), involved in two losing wars, with only eleven per cent of its workers in industries that are even making exportable products(and not all they make is exported), with no social welfare to speak of–not even universal health insurance–less literate than Cuba and with a higher infant mortality rate and a lower longevity rate, with an obsolete infrastructure, and also an obsolete and obscenely expensive military, with an oil disaster on its hands worse than a Chernobyl–with all that, and much more on the plate the US elite seems so far beyond overweening arrogance (Hybris) that perhaps only madness (Ate)does the trick.

Perhaps the Chinese Communists should open a humility school for these barbarian windbags.

This behavior will backfire very badly on Russia. They think by good-looking behavior they could score some points with the West, but they are very much misled. The West wants their resources, and that's it, otherwise there people will be just slaves like we see it in todays Africa.
So, Russia is seen by everybody as unreliable! And this will be deadly for those the future of Russia's independence. Somebody told me that the origional name of Medwedjew is Mendel and that he belongs to some synagoge, where he gets his important instructions. Unfortunately, I cannot find any substantial prove for that. But it would certainly explain a lot of the Russian politics.
Such countries like Venzuela and Brasilia watch that Russian behavior and will make their own conclusions!
W.

I’ve seen a news analysis a few years ago that talked about the Russians don’t actually want a nuclear-armed Iran or even an Iran that is too powerful. I think it was some American involved in foreign policy think tanks who mentioned this. This man suggested a few years ago that the Russians were actually bluffing about their support for Iran and that U.S. policy makers shouldn’t take the Russians too seriously. I wish I could remember the source for this but I can’t right now. I’m sure a determined person could go through articles from 2003 to now and dig similar stuff up. This idea makes sense, too. The Russians would just mess with the U.S. to try to get something out of it, but would still want to keep its neighbors down a bit, so that Russia is more powerful and to avoid having nuclear powers surround Russia.

I smelled it for months, now. Something in me knew it. It's not been decided recently by Russia. I'm not surprised. It reminds me of something. The power of historical patterns. Stalin making a deal with Hitler over Poland. 20 000 000 million deaths and some decades later, same sinister pattern, same bloody error, same stupid self-shooting in the foot. Rimbaud: I is another. Je est un autre. Time to read about the realms of the depths of the psyche we're unconscious of – but which drives us through and down dire and incredible garden paths. We're driven by powers we're not conscious of. That's my take on it. Today.

The refusal of Britain, France, and the Poles themselves (the bourgeois jingos obviously) to deal seriously with the Soviets and Stalin–that is what the Poles have to untangle in their still highly propagandized fantasies of theirown innocence and victimhood.

The Soviets were not trying to expand into an empire in the Baltics or Eastern Europe. They had their hands full with the revolution. They were operating purely defensively. This is particularly clear now in the archives.

As if dominating the Latvians, just for example–who incidentally were happy to collaborate with the NAZI's, was an important item on the Soviet agenda.

All other things being equal, they didn't give a damn about the Baltics, except as a western and Capitalist threat to themselves.

The same is true of the Russian Federation today. Latvia under the Soviet Empire had access to a vast economy, and the Soviets subsidized their energy needs. Let these little dwarfs pay for their oil and gas now, enjoy their fantasies as self-inflated Podunkians, and shut up.

Stalin was brutal and, as the Russians say, "no sweetheart".

So what? The Poles, the British, and the French were totally incompetent.

Britain and France sold the Poles out, as did the Polish elite–not the Soviets or Stalin.

And Britain certainly has a history much more brutal and murderous than Stalin or Russia, with France a close second, and both of them behind the US.

Stalin offered to guarantee, with Britain and France, Poland's security against NAZI Germany but the Poles refused to give permission that the Red Army be able to move across Poland to meet the Germans in their own territory.

Recall also that earlier the same Poles had participated in the NAZI dismantlement of Czechoslovakia.

Stalin's answer was an obscenity and the Hitler Stalin pact. His only motive was to play for time and get the buffer the Poles refused to give the Soviets as allies.

The Soviet occupation of the Baltics had similar motives–purely strategic and defensive, as the war with Finland as well.

With the Finns the Russians met a formidable foe, but that suited Stalin as well, since as long as the Finns did not aid the NAZI's in taking Leningrad, there would be no problem with a peace.

The Finns kept their word–they took back their own territory when the Germans invaded but they did not join in completely surrounding Leningrad as the Germans wanted them to.

Both Soviets and contemporary Russian Federation historians acknowledge that the Finns' passivity was key in the eventual raising of the siegeof Leningrad and express gratitude.

The idea that the Stalin Hitler Pact was an error is absurd.

It gave the Soviets a modicum of time and space.

Stalin well knew that Hitler would eventually attack. The only thing that surprised him was how quickly the attack came.

Stalin himself almost had a nervous breakdown when it came.

But his strategy was correct–the treachery and invasion united the Russians.

In fact it can be argued that if Stalin had not made the Pact the NAZI's would have won World War II.

Cerainly neither the British nor the French nor the US could have defeated them, though the second front was a help.

"Lockheed Martin, makers of the Joint Strike Fighter, has been under huge pressure to stabilize the jet’s skyrocketing costs. Production prices have nearly doubled on what was supposed to be an “affordable” fighter. R&D money is up another 40 percent. Some analysts predict the program could run as much as $388 billion for 2,400 jets."

Wired

The fact that apparently a good part of the American population that even reads such accounts has not concluded that the US Military Industrial Complex is not only obscenely expensive and incompetent, but also actively insane is an indication that the insanity and schizophrenia are both systematic and spread across most of the population.

This is just another form of what Delueze and Guattari call Captialism's necessary "anti-production", which is also connected to the increasing flow of stupidity and the necessity of artificial scarcity.